Re: Motivations, Principles, and Personality Traits

Nicky <nicky.matthews@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

This whole thing is utterly alien to me.I learn about the characters I
write about much as I learn about real people by what they say and do.
Sometimes I know what they think, but only sometimes and they always
justify themselves to themselves and I don't always agree. I don't
have any lists. I don't make a decision about whether they are good or
evil ;mostly they are a bit of both. I can't write a person through
lists of characteristics. I wouldn't know where to start or how to
convey it. Nine and sixty...

I can't come up with a character through lists; it feels artificial,
like at every moment I'd have to stop and think not "What would this
person say?" but "What would a Lawful Good Assertive Humane Patriot
say?" I do often when I'm starting to write them have to sit down and
work out who they are, but that's a matter of thinking through the
things I already know about them, and the consequences (and causes) of
those things, until something clicks and they come alive.

As for 'good' and 'evil' - it's not just not black and white, it's a
whole multidimensional spectrum. I've got a character who I mostly
think of as the Evil Overlady, but whenever I'm in the head of someone
in her presence... well, has she not been greatly wronged? and is she
not simply trying to do the best she can in trying circumstances? and
perhaps after all her way is in fact the best...

Zeborah
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Standards of behaviour
    ... character does not justify any judgement of the player's character. ... If they are not getting drunk or breaking the law, there is really no moral dimension to the issue: it is like whether they have jam or peanut butter on their bread. ... Because the most difficult and interesting evil is the stuff that is not clearly black and white. ... In one case the protagonist is given the choice of killing two resistance fighters who are already tied up, thereby saving the lives of 80 people from the village where he lives (the Germans have proclaimed that for each German killed by the resistance, 20 locals will be killed). ...
    (rec.games.frp.advocacy)
  • Re: How the Other Half Writes: Otto Schumann: Schreibkunst
    ... 'Who' as in a character or more I ... labourer working in the evil overlord's garden with a visitor trampling ... Fiction is a TERRIBLE vehicle for saying things, ... In the ME, same-sex relationships are so much not an issue, they don't ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Short quiz
    ... local nanites) recognise and could describe a list of well-known ... can guess at a couple of the others she lists. ... Apparently immortal member of the Howard Families, Lazarus made a cool character the first time but eventually became something much closer to RAH's Mary Sue. ... Lord Valentine ...
    (rec.arts.sf.composition)
  • Re: Lethality of events
    ... If she tried to stab the other PCs in the back, ... large degree abdicated her moral decision-making to another character: ... Otherwise it's fundamentally an evil mindset. ... the evil PC is being used as a tool for one player to exert some ...
    (rec.games.frp.advocacy)
  • Re: Josef Greindl
    ... way he is - read his lines to Siegfried and Gunther after he refuses to ... the absolutely fascinating dialogue he has with his father Alberich at ... I mean, Hagen is evil and scary evil, almost radically evil, but he's ... emotional ambivalence of the character of Gunther though ideally the voice ...
    (rec.music.opera)